


Won't Do You Any Good

by blasted0glass



Category: Touhou Project
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 00:20:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18727831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blasted0glass/pseuds/blasted0glass
Summary: Our hapless main character thinks he can get a job as a manservant. If only he could figure out the right answers to the Head Maid's moral questions.





	Won't Do You Any Good

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally an entry for the r/rational biweekly rationalist writing challenge: Black and White Morality.

The situation was becoming torturous for him. His interviewer stared at him after every question in a way that made him feel like a mouse before a hawk. No matter how he answered, no matter what joke he told, he could not get her countenance to break into a smile. He was all but certain that he’d failed the interview.

The job description asked for a physically-strong young person who was willing to travel often, but who also wanted to ‘become a dedicated lifelong associate of a prestigious but secretive family’. They wanted somebody who was intelligent and socially capable, but without attachment to their current locale. Apparently this particular rich family, of which he had met exactly zero members, needed a manservant to carry their bags and cook their food during their extensive travels. Or something along those lines. It sounded like a fantastic job to him. Traveling with the rich would be fun and it wasn’t like his culinary degree was particularly useful otherwise. He had to admit that in some part of his mind he was fantasizing about meeting a hypothetical daughter of the family. She would be beautiful and clever. He would charm her, they would grow close quickly.... well, he had no idea if that was in the cards, but he’d better quit fantasizing about it during the interview--the interview that he was failing.

His interviewer was a woman who wasn’t beautiful, or charming, or sympathetic to him in any way as far as he could tell. Her role as head housekeeper and her grey hair made her seem old, but her black suit and icy demeanor made him think of a young businessperson. She didn’t have that many wrinkles. Perhaps she never smiled or frowned at all and, shark-like, her skin never creased. He felt like he couldn’t understand her.

He struggled to understand most people. He had no friends to speak of and he was estranged from his family. In this case that might be a good thing: there was no reason he couldn’t just drop everything and just follow these rich people around. A good life could be had that way, he thought. He wasn’t certain, but he thought the questions so far had allowed him to express his willingness to abandon his current life for adventure. For all the good that willingness would do him. He was starting to think this lady hated his guts. Perhaps he should give up.

Fortunately, it seemed like that interview was almost over.

“One last question. Is a creature that eats only human beings fundamentally evil?”

He blinked. “Ah, let me think about it for a moment.” It was an unexpected thing to ask about. Was this one of those vague questions that supposedly clever managers liked to ask, just to see your ability to think on your feet? It was philosophical and it didn't have any practical utility. It might make sense as a final question for an interview he had nailed, rather than one he had tanked—in that case, his new boss could show off her sophistication by discussing the nature of morality while they chatted a bit more and became more comfortable with each other—but no, that made no sense either. Or did it? Maybe her perfectly-controlled demeanor concealed the truth, which was that he still had a chance at the job? He would do his best to answer the question, just in case.

“I assume you’re not asking an easy question like ‘is a non-sentient creature that eats people evil,’ because of course non-sentient creatures just _are_ , they don’t make moral decisions. I’ll also assume you aren’t asking the inverse easy question—whether a sentient person who chooses to eat people is evil, because if they could choose otherwise then they obviously should. It would clearly be evil to kill people without good reason. You must be asking a harder question, an edge case: if a sentient creature _has_ to eat people—if it has no choice but to kill others to live, but otherwise could behave morally—is it evil irredeemably but through no fault of its own?”

She seemed taken aback. That was a good sign if he was turning the interview around from a streak of failure—or a terrible sign if he had been nailing it. Perhaps his unexpectedly intelligent response had surprised her? At this point he was happy to see her display any emotion whatsoever.

“Yes, that is exactly what was I was asking.”

“I’m not really sure there is an answer. As a human being I’m tempted to say ‘yes, it’s evil.’ We treat things like disease and famine as evil just because they are antithetical to most peoples’ goals. Nobody minds the eradication of smallpox--so if it kills people, and has no other distinguishing qualities, it’s probably evil." Her countenance was cold once more. "On the other hand.... I can kind of imagine what it would be like to be a creature that needs to eat people, and if I were like that I would want sympathy. It would be a difficult life.”

Incredibly, the woman was nodding. "That’s why it is a difficult question. Even monsters may be deserving of sympathy. However, sympathy for the devil doesn’t make him good. ” The interview was changing from an interrogation to a conversation. He still had a shot!

“People can kill each other in some circumstances without being evil,” he said. “For example, defending yourself from a deadly attack probably isn’t evil. If you are attacked, killing the attacker is permissible--but hunting someone who wants nothing to do with you is different. Even so, a creature that eats humans could be morally acceptable, as long as it only ate people who didn’t deserve to live.”

“There is a problem with that.” She did not elaborate, so he gathered he was supposed to identify the problem himself.

“It’s hard to choose who gets to live. Deciding who deserves to be eaten would be very difficult except in unambiguous cases, and those would be rare. Also, the logistics of regularly killing and eating people would be a nightmare! Even without stringent moral criteria, you’d have to deal with capturing people and then disposing of the corpses, and you’d have to be secretive so that folks wouldn’t seek revenge. Even if the creature went through the effort of choosing carefully, it would probably end up eating many innocents just by accident, because it’s too hard to eat people in general. It’s the sort of thing where you’d need a support network, or a secret society. It’d be hard to do without… help…”

All of a sudden he started feeling some intense reservations about the job. Was this eating of people a metaphor for something? Were they seeking assassins--could he be interviewing for a job as as a spy?

“Let’s just leave out the logistics side of things. Let’s say it’s a perfect world, and the creature knows they are eating bad people.” That didn’t sound like something a spy would say. Then again, how many spies did he know?

“Well… I mean... if it’s a perfect world, nobody would deserve to be eaten. The bad folks wouldn’t even exist. In an ideal world, nobody _truly_ deserves to die. Indeed, some folks think that we should be that way already. All human lives, even the lives of bad people, have value.... if that’s the case, then the human-eating creature is evil, and that’s it.”

“Do you think that is the case?”

“Well... I don’t know. I think sometimes it’s okay to kill people. I mean, I agree with the death penalty in certain situations, in our imperfect world where we can’t spend infinite resources trying to rehabilitate or contain people.” Was that too political a statement? Should he pretend that killing was never okay? He had no idea if it would hurt his chances. It would help if he knew whether they wanted a manservant or an assassin. Wait, did he even want to be an assassin?

“So, to clarify, you think that a being who eats people is inherently evil unless they only eat people who deserve it. However, it is impossible for such a being to eat people correctly because realistically it’s too hard to decide who deserves to be eaten, and maybe nobody ever deserves to be eaten, so the creature ends up being evil even if they don’t want to be.”

“That sounds right.”

“Well, what if you found out that the creature was someone close to you? Like a family member or a good friend?”

“You mean that someone close to me was about to be eaten?”

“No, I mean: what if someone close to you secretly has to eat people to live?” He couldn’t honestly say he had that many people who were close to him, but he could understand why it would be difficult in theory.

“I mean, they’d still be evil. I’d be sympathetic... but...” He thought about it. “I would probably struggle to accept it.”

“Would you be afraid of them?”

“No. If they were going to eat me, they probably wouldn’t become friends with me first--so if we are friends, I have nothing to worry about personally.”

“What would make their eating of people difficult to accept?” That wasn’t a question one heard every day.

“Well… I am a human being and I value human lives. I’d want them to stop, for the same reason that I don’t want random strangers to suffer and die.”

“Would you want your friend to stop eating people even if it meant they would starve to death?” He thought about it for a moment.

“Even if they would starve, I’d want them to stop. I just can’t imagine a case where a monster that literally eats people could peacefully coexist with human society, and it wouldn’t feel right to just let them kill random strangers.” He would stand by his morals, and that should make him seem impressive during an interview. They couldn't possibly want an assassin, so this was some sort of test. Except, she clearly wasn’t impressed.

“I differ from you there. As long as nobody I personally cared about was eaten, I would be able to accept the need for the deaths of others.” Her expression was growing colder. “You speak of bad people’s lives having value. The life of a creature that eats humans also has value, and I’d say there are plenty of humans.”

He was going to fail this interview. He might as well try to lighten things up.

“Are we talking about vampires? You don’t seem like a Twilight fan! Ah, but we are talking about eating people anyway, not drinking them.” He tried to laugh, but cut himself short. She stared at him, and he was unable to imagine what went on behind her icy blue eyes.

Suddenly he felt very uncomfortable. She had been unsympathetic for most of the interview, and he had no idea what the job actually entailed. She knew from her questions that he could easily relocate himself--or, from another perspective, there would be little issue if he disappeared. Then she talked about eating people. What if she wasn’t looking for a manservant or an assassin… what if she was looking for lunch?

His interviewer stood and walked to the door. “I think this interview is done,” she said. However, instead of opening the door, she locked it. She turned back around with a very small smile. He felt his stomach plunge in horror. For a sickening moment, he imagined her pulling out knife--but she just stared at him for several worrying seconds.

“Y—you surely aren’t going to eat me!”

“Oh no. Of course I’m not going to eat you, I’m just a housekeeper. Although… you should know that one of my many duties is to cook and serve meals for the household.” He tilted his head, and her smile grew fractionally. “You have no idea how hard it is to keep them all fed.” He stood up and his chair fell over behind him.

“Relax.” She unlocked the door and swung it open. “It was just a little prank. I’m sad to say that you don’t meet our requirements. We will contact you if we change our mind, but you shouldn’t expect a call, and you shouldn’t feel compelled to contact us again. It won’t do you any good.”


End file.
